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Summer Photo a Day Challenge

Starting today I'm going to do my best to take a photo a day for the summer. If you're interested in joining me let me know. And also any thoughts you have on how we can help each other out to stay motivated and finish our task.

How lucky you are, this is our dream (my two children and me) but unfortunately as I fight against cancer for three years already! As soon as this is over, I will go to Korea also because my 18 year old daughter just finished her first year of study Korean language in Paris, she also learns Japanese and Thai languages ​​alone. We have a lot of passion that we could exchange you and me. Thank you for everything on your site, Veronique French!

I loved reading your story Marisa. I hope you adjust well to being back in the states.

You can totally do this photo challenge. I've tried in the past and have made it a couple months for a photo a day for a year. I think since your challenge is a 4 month challenge it is going to be a breeze for you.

I've tried to do photo-a-day challenges before using certain prompts and inevitably I come across one I just don't like, or can't find anything that goes with it, and I give up. But without a prompt, I end up with a photo a day of my kids doing something dumb.

Great idea Marisa but for me I would feel like it is a "requirement" and when that happens I procrastinate. I do carry my little camera so if I am out and see something I like I just pull the camera out. Works best for me. Good luck everyone with this "challenge."

Either way I think that the country is beautiful and it will be really easy for you to get some great photo memories!

Yay! I am psyched to do this. For the past four years I have taken a picture every day, and my intent is to scrap them with Project Life layouts, but the layouts take me a long time and so I get very behind. It will be nice to have another outlet for sharing and being motivated on taking my daily photo!

I have a couple of suggestions. If anyone will be using their iPhone as their camera (like I do), I highly recommend the Project 365 app. I just drop my photo in there each day and it has a nice calendar view for each month.

However, I imagine you, Marisa, and probably others will be using a real camera. Plus I think it would be fun to be able to share our photos with each other. We can post every day here like we did for the paper a day challenge, but I think it's fun and really motivating to see a month's worth of images all together. So my main suggestion for this challenge is that we all make Shuttercal accounts (they're free) and become friends there. Shuttercal is a very easy to use online calendar-format site for your daily photo. Here is an example from my account, March 2012 (mine is not very up to date because I use the iPhone app now, but I would happily go back to using Shuttercal for this challenge): http://www.shuttercal.com/calendar/Scrumptious/2012/3/ This particular month I had a theme (Instagram pics) and was following a Photo A Day list that gave a prompt for every day. I don't do that most of the time, I just like to have pics of whatever I feel like each day, but it's fun sometimes, too. I had a great time creatively interpreting the prompts to fit whatever I was doing that day and wanted to photograph. Perhaps one month of the four (or more if people want) we could have a shared daily prompt list? It could be really fun seeing everyone's interpretation of the daily prompt.

Tips that have helped me:
- switching to my phone was REALLY helpful. Now I always have my camera on hand
- it just takes a while to get into the habit of it. I forgot tons of times during my first year. Now I sometimes will forget to take a picture during a particular event or encounter, but I pretty much never fall asleep without having a taken a picture for that day.
- you probably have no problem with this, Marisa, but for me there was a real process with getting comfortable asking strangers to photograph me when I was alone doing something I wanted to record, with whipping out my camera at every opportunity, and with getting my friends into the habit of there always being a camera in the mix. At first they thought it was weird or funny, but now they love it, because so much of our life has been documented
- when I did start to get a little bored, around year 3, that's when I started bringing in themes & daily prompt lists.
- when I did miss a day, I would usually make it up with a daily-life photo - my bedside table today is the same as it was yesterday, so photographing it today will serve perfectly well in documenting some part of my life from yesterday

People talk about this kind of project like it's really hard, and I think that encourages folks to engage with it like it's really hard. As long as you don't beat yourself up about forgetting (it helps to have a plan in place for what you want to do when you forget), and if you miss a day or a week or whatever you just get back on the horse and keep taking pictures, it seems like it should be possible to stick with it. You can't be a perfectionist with this kind of project, or you will doom yourself to failure.

I guess the other part is to get clear from the beginning what you want out of it. I wanted to document my daily, real life, so it was easy, for example, to make up days I missed. Brandi, I think a photo a day of your kids doing something dumb would make a fantastic album! That sounds awesome! I wish I had kids doing something dumb every day - sounds way more interesting than pics of my blender and my cat. But then it sounds like you had a different goal that you were trying to achieve with the project, and so those pics didn't cut it for you. Also, for me, on days when I didn't like the prompt or couldn't think of anything to fulfill it, I took a picture of something else instead. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good! I think it's vital for this project that "bad," "boring," and "repetitive" pictures be acceptable - the goal is simply to take one every day, not have every one be a masterpiece.

I'd love to hear more from people about why they gave up or quit doing photo a day projects. Obviously this really caught my fancy and that's probably the main reason I've been able to stick with it, because it is very suited to my interests and temperament. So I may not be able to perceive the kinds of things that lead people to quit doing it. Share those stories here, and maybe we can figure out ways to get around whatever those blocks were and stay motivated!

I think it is a lovely challenge, but what are we expected to do with the photographs? Do we just post them with a short description? It is pouring with rain today and windy too, so I guess I will start indoors!

I think we'll start out easy, I'll probably share my photos on my blog every couple days or so, and then people can link up theirs in the comments.

Since I mostly just want people to participate I don't want to force them into using some sort of special system (flickr, pinterest, etc) So you can do what works best for you, and then share the link.

How does that sound? As things progress, maybe I'll change things up a bit, so let keep me posted on how things are going for you and what would help to keep the motivation going.

You are - almost - convincing me to join you... but is an almost... my life is really boring this month... you´d see pics of my photoshop, my Wacon tablet and my cats sleeping on my bed, with ocasional people on the weekends... The only apointments I really have are visitis to doctors... well, not a good photo theme...

I've been doing this now for about 4 or 5 days. I just share my photos to Instagram though. There's no real date system with that app, but that doesn't really bother me. It's enough for me that I'm taking the photos. Plus, I've always got my phone on me so I actually have a chance of catching a quick snap rather than if I had to drag out my DSLR every time. It takes nice pictures, but it's pretty inconvenient.

Just saw this, and it does sound interesting. I almost take a photo a day as it is with 4 grandchildren. Or when they are all around I take 50 a day. Anyway, I may just join you on this. Sounds like a lot of fun.

I do cheat a little. Sometimes switching the date on one photo to a day I missed. I figure if I could have taken the photo on that day it's okay, and I don't want to give up just because I miss a day here or there, and I like to have a complete set. It can be a bit challenging, especially at the beginning, to get into a routine, so I keep things a little relaxed so I keep going.

Ok, I have to say you convinced me. I have been taking (at least a) photo a day since the 21st, and my goal is to go till the next 21st (if I stop then, there´s no problem, if I go ahead, oh, well). I bet you will be a bit bored with cats pictures, however...

@A.D - glad to know my super common cats aren´t as boring to other people as I imagine, as I usually spend the weeks with them and my gadgets... As there is no fun taking pics of electronics, cats are the main subject for pics/scrapping...

@lorien Are you kidding, I can't go without my daily icanhascheezburger fix. Used to hate they only update a page a day. Lol.

Im sure breeds are nice and all, but I hate it when people assume my cats are not common because of the money I spend on them. Im not going to waste a 100 dollars to buy a single cat when I can use that money on more common cats.

I am glad your project is going so well! I'm still taking a picture every day, but I gave up on posting them to Shuttercal. It was too repetitive since I already put them into a Project Life layout every week, and since we're not discussing them here it didn't seem like there was a reason to take an extra step to make them publicly available. I've been checking out your photos on Shuttercal, Marisa, and they look great! Let me know if it's helpful or motivating to have another person posting there and I'll go back to doing it, but otherwise I will quietly cheer you on while I make my PL layouts.

So sorry to read you are fighting cancer. My strongest fighting thoughts go to you. You will definitely pull through!
I am fighting a brain tumour myself but it is benign so it's nothing compared to you.
Go girl! Fight it and win and live your life as a challenge!